


The Gleaming Eye

by TheAlpacalypse



Category: The Tell-Tale Heart - Edgar Allan Poe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Blood, Gen, Graphic Description, PLEASE TELL ME IF I NEED TO TAG ANYTHING ELSE, so I wrote this months ago and i figured I should publish it, the narrator is a werewolf
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-18 10:41:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29367180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAlpacalypse/pseuds/TheAlpacalypse
Summary: You think I told the police the truth?—No!—They would call it a disease, the insanity of a broken mind. They say I am mad—they are right, mad at not dragging out his death longer!—How then, could I not be sorry about killing him?—Ha! I'll tell you. Sure, lean in, I won't bite.AKA. The Narrator is a werewolf
Kudos: 1





	The Gleaming Eye

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah. i was reading a tell tale heart and went "he has to be a werewolf" then I wrote this.

You think I told the police the truth?—No!—They would call it a disease, the insanity of a broken mind. They say I am mad—they are right, mad at not dragging out his death longer!—How then, could I not be sorry about killing him?—Ha! I'll tell you. Sure, lean in, I won't bite.

The old man with his vulture eye approached me appraisingly, one withered hand fiddling in his handkerchief pocket. I stopped my digging to nod respectfully before forcing the shovel back in the sand.

He inquired about the weather on the beach this time of year. I should like to think that I answered semi-politely but I hardly remember anything after that. A fragment of the gleaming blue eye flashing red, a stabbing pain, like a needle, on my shoulder, the darkening of the world around me, sand on my eyelids, leather boot on my nose.

I awoke in the middle of the night. The full moon had come and gone and it seemed to taunt me with the time that had slipped through my fingers. There was one window that I could scarcely fit my head through and through this light of the moon illuminated the room I was in. I had marks running up and down my arms, untreated scratches, and there were large gashes in the walls revealing stone bricks behind them.

The floorboards creaked, unbearably loud, and I reeled back against a wall, covering my ears. The room was suddenly overlaid by a paler version of the same room. Two phantoms appeared, one, mouth covered, dripping blood from its eyes and one singing as if compelled. I walked forwards as if in a dream, intent on following the creatures, escaping that hell of a room when the door opened.

The illusion shattered and suddenly it was day. The old man came in—oh how I wish I had snapped his neck at that very moment—He said I had gotten sick. That he had saved me from certain death, that I would have collapsed that very day and died in the hole I had dug if not for him. I asked him what I had and he didn't answer—the coward—he just mentioned that I was still contagious and that medicine was very expensive. He put a plate with food on the floor just inside the door and shut it quickly.

The plate only contained raw meat. I ate it anyway, desperate for something to do, fearing the phantom from earlier would haunt me more. Surprisingly, I was able to stomach the animal. I sat back and watched the sun set slowly. There was a faint noise coming from below me crescendoing into a mass of screams and whimpers. I started humming loudly trying to block it out.

Suddenly the room split again, the pale version just an inch away from my reality. I saw a creature—No!—An angel, with golden wings. It was trapped in the room with me. It started bashing its head against the ceiling, shrieking about a vulture, about hell, trying to escape.   
It could hear the sounds too! I called to it, desperately, trying to make myself heard. I think I screamed myself hoarse clawing at the closest wall to it. The door swung open and I ran at the old man, imploring him to help the angel, intent on choking him for keeping me trapped with this beast. I crashed into a wall and the man and angel started to disappear, cries growing fainter and fainter as the old man's eye grew more and more crimson.

I collapsed onto the cot, exhausted—throat raw. I resolved to get out of this room—this torture. For the next week I was nothing but courteous and kind to the old man biding my time, praying the phantoms would not return.

The man mentioned the expense of the medicine for my disease again. Like a fool, I played into his hand and offered to become an indentured servant until I paid my debts off. I don't regret it—anything to get out of that godforsaken room for even a moment.

We settled into a routine, he would unlock my room in the morning, I would do manual labor—I had gotten much stronger throughout my "disease" and recovery. Every month he would send me into that room. I don't remember what happened those nights but I imagine that some beastly thing happens, so horrible that my memory blocks it out. Each time I supposed that the deprivation of senses strengthened them more during the rest of the month. I was wrong.

The old man would sometimes cook the most pungent smelling things and seemed to take pleasure in measuring how long it took me before I was gagging. He also insisted on shaving my hair each month. He would collect it and bring it to the cellar, I wasn't allowed down there, the old man said it was just the trash—the liar.

Eventually, the phantoms started showing up all over the house, the house started smelling worse, more and more hair was collected per month. One night as I was lying in bed I had another vision but this one was impossibly more vibrant than my reality. The old man was there with a new creature, a lady with a fish's tail in a bathtub.

The old man's eyes were glowing red, illuminating the room in front of him. He walked over to her whispered something into her ear. She gazed up at him in disgust and moved to attack him but suddenly there was a flash of red and the old man was not old. He had transformed into a middle-aged man, still recognizable as himself. He looked down and started muttering about needing something stronger.

I realized then that the old man would soon discard me as he had so many of his other creatures. Likely for energy or to keep himself from looking old. I contemplated through the night about what I should do. A whisper kept circling in my head, kill the man, kill him and you will be free, kill him so he doesn't kill you.

I have never been sure if this was me or a phantom clawed out of a vision and into my mind, however, the thought was persistent and was sounding better and better as everything kept getting louder. I recall creeping stealthily through the hallway night after night for days and waiting—tracking the man's sleeping pattern—making sure he wouldn't wake up until the deed was done.

I suppose his age was wearing on him because he forgot to bring me to the other room this month. When the bells on the church four miles away started striking midnight I walked to the old man's room—slowly, very slowly—shielding my lantern from view. I was almost fully in the door when the old man started awake. Even in the pitch-black, I could see his eyes darting around the room. His heartbeat picked up thumping, suddenly another heart was overlaid on the old man. It was bloated and drooping and loud—so, so loud.

The old man reached behind him and tugged the curtains. I saw the full moon. I don't remember much but I think I screamed. The next thing I knew the old man was dead and cut into pieces under the bed. I had blood under my fingernails. The moon had set and I needed a place to hide the body. 

I ventured into the basement then, figuring there would be nooks and crannies. Instead, I found a bubbling tube of what appeared to be green blood, scales, barrels of hair, a horn, a statue of a head of snakes, and a small boat made out of fingernails. I put his foot at the bottom of the hair, and his head in the vat of blood. The rest of his body was hidden throughout the room. The only thing left was his heart.

It was still warm and I imagined that it was pulsing angrily at me. I put it under a loose floorboard in the sitting room and covered it with my chair. By then it was midday and I needed sleep.

I detected steps approaching the house. Two pairs of feet. I answered the door as they knocked. The neighbor had heard my shrieks and sent the police to investigate. I explained, quite charismatically, I might add, that I sometimes had night terrors and that the old man was visiting the countryside. It was then that a sort of pulsing in my head started like the beginning of a headache. I disregarded the noise as nervousness and continued chatting with the constables.

Slowly a drooping purple bloated heart faded into existence on my lap. It started beating loudly, so loudly I feared my head would split. I jumped up and the heart stayed on my lap. The noise increased until all I could hear was the beating. I shouted over it, tried to express opinions, scare the heart into submission but it kept getting louder. I couldn't take it anymore, I confessed to the constables that I had murdered the old man. That his heart lay, still beating under the floorboards. 

I still had the blood of his heart under my fingernails when I was tossed in here, and I can still imagine his head sinking slowly in that vat of blood. It was wonderful.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm very willing to discuss anything and everything in the comments. But the narrator was definitely a werewolf. Please comment. I would love to chat!


End file.
